There are various sites that provide free images. Some give you the tools to create the images yourself, and some provide royalty free or creative commons images for you to use.

We have bolded the ones we recommend for quality of images and ease of use.

NB: If photos have people on them, there may be a model-release involved. Please check for these.

Image creators

• Canva - free to create an account
• OpenBadges.me - enter an email address and create free badges from a range of shapes and templates
• Piktochart - create your own infographics or graphics, option for collaboration, easy to use templates
• Powtoon - create free animated videos and presentations, everything you need is provided

Royalty free or creative commons images ready to use

• Pixabay - free to use images, no attribution required
• CGTextures - textures and backgrounds, requires login to download, free account creation
• Historical Stock Photos - free historical photographs, big American focus
• Gratisography - free high resolution artistic photos, no strings
• ImageBase - free high resolution photographs, organised by category, no strings
• Kave Wall Stock - abstract photographs, backgrounds, textures, free to use (attribution required)
• OpenPhoto.net- easy to search and navigate, photo attribution easy to copy, full resolution images free to download
• NASA ArtSpace - royalty free images from NASA
• PhotoGen - amateur high resolution photos, free, no strings
• Pixel Perfect Digital - free high resolution professional photos, extra options such as colours sometimes available, attribution information shows when downloading
• StockPholio - nice photos, easily searchable, copy and paste the credit, downloadable in a range of formats
• RGBStock - completely free photos, good quality, need registration to download
• Public Domain Photos - photos of mixed quality, click to get full resolution, no strings
• Freepik - nice graphic designs, icons, careful of clicking to premium sites, files in Adobe Illustrator format (only for people with graphic design experience)
• 4freephotos - free photographs, diverse range, a lot of ads, can be difficult to browse
• Bigfoto - good photographs, lots of ads, can be difficult to browse
• Free Photos Bank - good photographs, difficult to navigate and find the free ones
• Freepixels - absolutely free images, limited range of images, cluttered site
• Freerange Stock - amateur photos for free, quite cluttered site, must be registered to download, free registration

Image editors - resize, crop, apply effects to your own images

• Autodesk Pixlr - browser-based image editor, lots of features, also Mac and Windows native apps available

Other useful resources

• Digital NZ
• 7 ways to find creative commons images
• Library guide to copyright and Library guide to creative commons
• Collections Online - Te Papa

You can attribute images in several ways, and the important thing is that they are attributed correctly.

Always check whether you are allowed to use images. Images that you find on Google Search are not all just free for use. Always go to the source of the image and check whether the person who posted it is happy for you to use it! Then make sure you mention the actual source (Google Images is not a source!).

Ways to attribute images:

• When you upload the image to Moodle, it asks for Author and Licence. Make sure you change these to reflect the actual owner and licence of the image. Also make sure you repeat this information in the image description. If you have done both of these steps, that is all that is needed.
• You can put a note at the bottom of your page, or in a block, stating where you got the images (the original source, remember not Google Images), and what sort of licence the image is under.
• You can put this information in a caption under your image.

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For example, this image here says "No attribution required". This means you don't have to attribute the original source, however, you should still state under which licence this image is used so that people know that it is public domain, no attribution.

Image licence: CC0 Public Domain, no attribution required.

We have put the licence information in the image description, though the hover text (also called alt text) doesn't seem to work in a glossary. If you find that is the case where you have placed your image, it is best to also put the information in a caption (as above), or a side-block.

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Put licence in image description like this:

HOVER TEXT - Add the image, go to the "advanced" tab and put the hover text required in the "title" field

Adjusting all email notifications from Moodle

1. Log into Moodle
2. Hover your cursor over your name in the top right
3. Preferences> Message

Then you will see a long list of events that Moodle can send email notifications for. Choose which of them you wish (or don't wish) to receive by email, by using the check boxes.

When you are done, click "Save"

About email notifications from Moodle

Moodle is not an email platform. If you wish to email your students, please email them! Moodle does sometimes send email notifications of events that happen on Moodle such as:

• a Moodle message has been received while the user is offline
• a forum post to a subscribed forum (such as a news forum)
• an upcoming event

These notifications sometimes fail, so they are not a reliable way of emailing your students. To email your students, send them an actual email.

Adjusting forum email digest settings

1. Log into Moodle
2. Click on your name "You are logged in as Firstname Lastname" in the top right
3. Administration block > My profile settings > Edit profile
4. Email digest type:
   • No digest (single email per forum post) - you will be emailed a separate email notification for every single forum post to a forum you are subscribed to. This can spam your email if you are subscribed to a busy forum, or many forums.
   • Complete (daily email with full posts) - you will receive one email per day with all that day's forum posts compiled on it, in full.
   • Subjects (daily email with subjects only) - you will receive one email per day with all that day's forum posts compiled on it in list format, showing only the subject lines. Click the subject lines to go to that forum post to read it (you may be required to log into Moodle to see the forum).
5. Click "Update profile" at the bottom.

A Moodle page is a separate web page which can be filled with text, media and links.

Adding a new page to your course:

• From the "Add an activity or resource" menu, choose Page.
• In the "Adding a new page" screen that follows, give your page a name and an optional description.
• Add your content to the Page content section using the web editor.

A HTML block is basically a 'free' block. This means you can add any text, links or media to it with the HTML editor.

Add a HTML block

• Select 'HTML block' from the 'Add a block' menu.
• Edit the settings of the new block.
• Provide a title for the block.
• Add the content to the Content window. You can add text, media and links to websites or documents.
• Select 'Save changes'.

In an HTML block you can create links to external URLs, Moodle activities and resources or documents you have uploaded to Moodle

• Type the word or sentence that will be the link (make sure this is a word/sentence that conveys meaning to the learner)
• Highlight this word/sentence
• Select the chain icon in the text editor
• 
• In the Link URL box of the dialog window, you can add the following:
  • a URL of an external website (e.g. www.google.com)
  • a URL of a Moodle activity/resource (go to the required activity and copy the url that appears on top e.g. http://moodle.unitec.ac.nz/mod/page/view.php?id=235530)
  • a link to a document (see below)
• Select Insert
• Select Save changes.

To link to a document:

• Select the browse icon next to the Link URL field.

• Select Upload a file from the left menu to add a new file from your computer. Browse and select the file you need
• Select Server files to search for a file you have already uploaded in the course
• Select Insert.

To add a new event to a calendar, navigate to the month required in the calendar block.

• Click the name of the month
• An expanded window opens
• Select the button 'New event'
• On the New Event page select the type of event
  • A User Event will only be visible by the user currently logged in (i.e. the one creating the event)
  • A Group Event will be visible to a particular Group on the course (chosen from a drop-down list)
  • A Course Event will be visible to participants on the course in question. Only users with the capability to manage calendar entries at the course level can add course events.
  • A Site Event is a "global" event - visible in every course and on the calendar on the home page. Only users with the capability to manage calendar entries at the system level can add site events.
• Set the event properties
• Click Save changes

This is for teachers only.

If the course you are teaching is not already on Moodle you can use the "Request a Course" button that is visible at the bottom of any category in Moodle.

You can get to "Request a course" in 2 ways:

You can then fill out the form.

If you are using Mac

• just hold the vowel and you will see a list of options.
• You can copy/paste it from: http://maori.typeit.org/
• You can using the Māori keyboard: https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~kimihia/musingaori-keyboard

If you are using Windows

• make sure you have the Maori keyboard installed (Unitec Managed builds will have this - talk to IMS)
• in your task bar click the little keyboard icon and switch to Maori keyboard mode
• type ` (usually to the left of the 1 on your keyboard) followed directly by the vowel and it will become one with a macron
• when you are done make sure to return to US keyboard mode

It is possible to make a beautiful horizontal rule in Moodle.

Here is an example which you can add to your own course by clicking the < > button and pasting the following code.

<hr style="height:8px; color:##800000; background-color:#800000;" width="75%">

The horizontal rule is a great way to separate resources and activities into manageable chunks, display subtopics in sections.

Here is a list of Unitec programmes with their ID codes and school codes that provide these programmes: